Thank you for this awesome video. It helped me a lot on cleaning my machine. I was 10 minutes away from buying kettle cleaner from Amazon. Then I watched your video and said thank you, you awesome person. I truly appreciate you and your time. You saved me time and money. From my family to yours, Thank you.
Genius!!!!!!!!! I bought a big popper for my home, and I also take it to fund raisers for Therapy Horse Riding for children with emotional disabilities. Cleaning it was such a pain! Now it’s so easy using your method!!!
Steam - Makes perfect sense! Just spent an HOUR cleaning for the first time, so tedious, and it was a royal pain to get the kettle back on the hooks! I was dreading cleaning next time, now I am actually looking forward to it so I can steam clean!!!
Great point with no chemicals. Although you could use a food safe sanitizer spray. Personally, it's much faster to take out the kettle and use a scrubby pad. Remove the lid and do a quick soap soak while I'm wiping down the case. Then I dry, reassemble, and I'm done. 5 min.
this is brilliant. i've had my for 4 years and i'm tempted to just throw it away and buy a new one but if this method works i'll be happy! going to attempt this tonight!!! i wish my popcorn kettle could stir without heating tho
Looks like a great way to do basic maintenance, but there was a bunch of gunk left on the agitator that can only be cleaned by taking the kettle off. I will definitely do this as a means to keep it cleaner, but I still think a good disassemble is needed a couple times a year
Actually, the steam loosens up all of that gunk and off camera, you can get to all of it, which I did off camera. Videoing is time sensitive and seconds count. I haven’t opened my kettle in years. Most people have the issue of the heavy build up on the hot part of the kettle. If the steam gets that off, it loosens up everything else.
Looks great! I wonder about a couple of minor things: First, why wait until the kettle is hot to add the water? This strikes me as an unnecessary temperature shock to the kettle - why not add the water first, and then turn on the heat until it boils? Also, your method seems great for regular cleaning but have you looked at the bottom of the rim of your kettle, where the inner and outer bowl meet? I have a very similar kettle from an 8oz. machine and the underside of that lip gets quite caked with gunk. Once in a while I pull the kettle and even remove the gasket between the inner and outer bowl and clean it all up.
Call party rental companies. That’s how I bought mine! It’s a Gold Medal brand and works beautifully! That same Party company also sells the popcorn kits with the corn, oil, and salt all pre measured and packaged for popping in batches. The neighbor kids smell my popcorn popping, and know I’ll be bringing some to their parents!!! As a retired teacher, I love giving them a treat once in a while!
Works great on my 8oz kettle cooker. Using good oil like coconut oil leaves very little residue anyway, and it is a very 'clean' oil that does not need super degreaser to clean up. Salt or Flavacol even helps.
My wife bought me one of these movie theater popcorn machines and I rarely used it since it was a pain to clean. I just tried your process and I will now start using my machine to make my popcorn.
YOU SAVED ME $40 AT LEAST, AND TRIPLE THAT IN FRUSTRATION AT THE GOUGING SOB'S WHO MAKE "HEAT 'N KLEEN" AND ALL THE STUFF LIKE IT ($12 for 8 ounces of it, and $30 to ship it, PLUS TAX)! BLESSING UPON YOU! THANK YOU! I subscribed too! Took me awhile to find your video but it was worth it. PS...I see you're a retired teacher....same here; teachers rule!
This is amazing! I was so hesitant on buying a popcorn popper like this because of the reviews on how hard it was to clean. I'm inspired now to buy one for hubby. Thanks for putting this video together!
THANK YOU SO MUCH! @nostalgia needs to pay you commission for this - saw many negative reviews about product being hard to clean before I bought mine - if they featured this video, boom!!!
Cool video.. i knew about the water trick, but the papertowel idea is new to me.. also, as the water is boiling, and ur cleaning the side walls, id recommend wearing oven gloves as not to burn yourself by accidemtally touching the hot kettle.
Thank you for this video!! I just couldn't get mine clean. We are trying this now.. so far so good. :) I was wondering tho, how often do you clean your popcorn maker?
A Squeegee for cleaning the steamed interior. glass and walls. I am a commercial popcorn machine operator, new to this, seeking cleaning tips. Mine is a double header, no glass, wide open platform. I use a sterile squeegee to clean out the fine particles. It will clean your glass. Thank you for this upload.
This looks like a great way to clean the popcorn popper kettle! Thank you!! Now, if I can only figure out why the stir bar continually gets stuck while going around shortly after the kernels start to pop, resulting in a horrid sound and burned popcorn.
@@laquancharles479 Nope - turned out, a plastic gear in the motor that turned the stir bar was cracked. Ended up ordering a new motor for $25 and replacing - with some retooling. Not easy, but it works great now!
Orange Glow? My God, I'd have been pissed. Anyways, I just ordered this same model this week for my home theater and your video was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
I’m going to try this. Only trouble is my kettle belongs to the stand at the school and is so dirty! There is a layer of burnt crust on parts of the bottom. This method looks promising!
I pop hundreds of pounds of seed a year for sporting event.. boiling out your kettle is a great way to clean ... you can place a kitchen rag inside while agitating to do a through job... in extreme cases they make a boil out cleaner especially for popcorn kettles but a small wire brush on a cordless works too. Just be VERY CAREFUL. Steam can give you serious burns
I used soap and water. I cut my hand and I used water. But the kettle of mine is clean but the rest is not so I'm gonna give this a try thank you very much.
Just cleaned mine like this, bought it from a family selling all their things for their new job in New York. I bought half their furniture and they threw this machine in for free. My college aged daughters face lit up, always inviting her friends over for movie night or poker night.
Bartender's Friend would be good to use instead of the 2nd batch of steam. The problem with cycling the kettle heat unnecessarily is that you are adding an additional cycle to the heat element which over the years will prematurely wear the element. Bartender's Friend has been used in restaurants for 140 years and is very safe.
I have the same “rusting” issues as well, but the popcorn does not go near it, so I don’t mind it. Every popcorn machine I’ve had did it. The only solution would be a stainless steel plate up there but I bet that’s not going to happen with these machines.
@@VanessaCorazonOfficial I just wipe it down as well here and there when I clean the machine. I agree, it’s not the best design but I wouldn’t worry about it. Enjoy that popcorn!
i'd think to clean, sandblast, outgas and powdercoat that plate with silver and clearcoat, or for a more permanent solution, fabricate a stainless plate to replace it. Needless to say, it will require disassembly of the machine to get to it, but once powdercoated, unless the coat is intentionally damaged or not coated / not cleaned properly, it should last the service life of the machine or longer. While I do have my own diy sandblasting and powder coating setup and baking oven (non-food, required for powdercoat) for these sorts of things, it is more of a hobby setup and is not something accessible to all without significant investment, but there are shops that can do all that for you if you bring them the part.
I actually got my idea from watching my popcorn pop, which always created steam. I'm assuming all popcorn machines are created differently, but I would not worry about the gear shift since it's used to that steamy environment from making actual popcorn.
Thanks! How often do you clean, every time you have used it? Does it get this greasy after just one batch? Also, is it not possible to just remove the kettle and clean it? Careful with the water of course.
I wipe down everything every time I use it. I also put in dry paper towels in the machine and run it with the heat off to get any old popcorn out of the kettle. I do the steam clean once I see the bottom like that. It’s usually 7-8 uses.
You normally wouldn't dismantle a kettle unless it needed a complete overhaul. As for how often? Every night you use it, of course. If it's for home use, then I expect you might enjoy your popcorn maybe once a week on movie night. At a movie theatre, it would be a nightly chore. I've had days when I've made only one batch (I manage a theatre in B.C.) due to very light attendance -- in such an event the cleaning still must be done, but it goes a lot quicker than on a heavy-usage day.
@@davidanderson_surrey_bc Thanks! Sounds reasonable. As for the frequency - man! If I could I would make a batch every other night but I do need to think about my health juuuust a little bit :-) Those portion packs with coconut oil and flavacol are supertasty for a reason :-)
Everyone is different. On the steam clean I do it once I feel like it’s junked up to the point where the popcorn is not popping to perfection. Others like to do it every use.
I downloaded the manual for the machine I'm borrowing for a party and it says to do exactly this, but to never run the kettle without anything in it - so add the water first before you turn it on.
Ahhh, I like to keep it natural in that bowl since it's hard to rinse. I bet it does work, but the first batch after you use the soap might taste a bit soapy, lol.
When I worked in a bowling alley we had to clean our popcorn machine every evening…I had a spray bottle of vinegar and water and it cleaned it up well…
@@TodayIWorkOn I just tried it lol. It worked great. I had to use alcohol pads to get rid of the grease around it which worked great. But the water method was amazing! It’s spotless. Thank you
Nice giant petri dish. The bottom (non steamed) are is your bacteria factory. But if you use enough salt it can keep it at bay. I would use a small wet dry shop vac for the bottom section. Not easy way to disinfect the bottom area.
